Apocalyptic Visions hate you. They hate your family, they hate your friends. They hate your dog, your cat, your neighbours and your postman. Now, you may be saying, so what? Most Extreme Metal bands claim to hate everyone, but how many actually live it? Well, for once this is a band that seems to mean what they say. Despite being formed in 2001 and being pretty darn good at the fine art of Death Metal, the band are unsigned (this album being distributed by Deathgasm Records) which certainly seems to suggest that they don’t care whether you listen to their music or not, you pathetic human slime. Apocalyptic Visions will certainly hate me for writing this favourable review, but I'm going to risk their wrath because this is one of those rarities that you stumble across every so often in the scene, a Death Metal band that makes interesting music, doing more than just making you bang your head.

As a starting point, this is heavily influenced by Deicide and Vital Remains, both the brutality of the former and the epic melody of the latter making themselves known. It’s how these are implemented, however, that makes all the difference; whilst the ignorant may think that nineteen-song long concept albums about massive Chthonic beasts appearing in the sky and killing lots and lots of people are a common occurrence in Death Metal, in truth we get far too few of them. It makes sense that such an awesome concept makes for an awesome album! Leave None Living is one hell of a mixed bag, making frequent usage of Grind elements (Erase The Earth), epic Prog Metal arrangements (Tearing Heaven Out Of The Sky), tribal percussion and chanting (Ceratathoa Imbricita, Tambores De Guerra) to name but some of what you’ll hear. These guys can really play their instruments, too, with plenty of technical licks and beats to be found; vocalist/guitarist War has been a member of Demoncy and Dååth amongst others, the latter also formerly including versatile and seemingly octopus-armed drummer Plague.

Whilst we’re quite used to bands doing new things on their albums here and there, Apocalyptic Visions are somehow still capable of surprising. Take I Want You Dead as an example, starting with weird electronics and moving through gnarly Death Metal, melodic Power Metal riffing, epic keyboards and more of that tribal drumming. It might seem like an odd mixture, and it is, but Apocalyptic Visions are good enough songwriters to make it work. The result, when looked at as a whole, is a pretty darn good album, varied enough for repeated plays without being impossible to enjoy on a first listen. From the ominous storm and screams on the opening blast and title track onwards all the way through to the hidden orchestral piece at the end (composed entirely in the Hungarian Minor scale, apparently) this is a gripping listen for any Death Metal fan with much more intelligence and thought than first impressions would suggest. I could go on, but I’ll stop here, just in case someone actually checks this out and the band get truly angry with me...